Why I can win

More than a few people have pointed out to me the size of the mountain I have to climb in order to beat the incumbent Mayor this November. They will mention that I have never run for office before while the Mayor has been running practically his whole adult life. They will mention that I have no political affiliation, while the Mayor has the backing of the Democratic party and will have 50 or so precinct committee people working for him. But as the chart on this page shows, that is no guarantee of a tsunami of votes.

He received a little over half the votes cast in the last Democratic primary when he defeated Jim Graham; and then he got 8307 votes in the November 2011 general election in which he was unopposed. But even unopposed, that is barely 50% of the typical turnout in a national election year in Warren. That is pretty weak.

I’m certainly not saying this will be easy. The Mayor has his advantages, but there is tremendous dissatisfaction with the status quo, and if we can motivate the people who have been staying home because they had no one to vote for — we have a great chance.